


Closer in the Dark

by frozensea



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25120939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozensea/pseuds/frozensea
Summary: When Poe falls into a chasm, it's up to Rey to rescue him.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Rey
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	Closer in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



"That's a very narrow ledge," Poe said with a dubious look at the path that led to the other side of the cavern. On one side of it, the rock wall curved up into a ceiling so high that Poe couldn't see it in the darkness, and on the other side, the floor dropped off abruptly into a chasm that didn't seem to have a bottom.

"We'll be fine. People walked this path for hundreds of years. If they can do it, so can we." Rey had already put a good twenty feet between them. The ancient torch she carried was the only light they had, and Poe did his best to ignore the tug of anxiety in his gut as he watched the darkness slither in around him the farther Rey walked. 

“Yeah, well. They weren't just people were they? They were Sith. And they probably didn't have to worry about falling off a ledge because they could just – I don't know – jump across this thing. Using the Force and all that.”

“Probably.”

There was laughter in Rey's voice. It... rankled. Just a bit. It wasn't that he was afraid to follow her. He'd thrown himself into more dangerous missions than this one, but he sure as hell wasn't happy about it.

“And just how tacky do you have to be to build a secret temple in a tunnel system running through an active volcano? What... did they think conspiring to take over the galaxy and killing people left and right would leave anyone in doubt that they're evil?”

His tentative first step onto the ledge was arrested by a swooping sensation in his stomach. He gritted his teeth.

“You can wait here until I'm back if you want. I won't be long.”

Well, that was just missing the point, wasn't it? As if there was any chance that he'd let her do this alone. As much as he trusted Leia, he was highly skeptical of the Force in general and the Sith in particular. Sure, maybe the temple was abandoned just as it was supposed to be, but people had also believed that there weren't any Sith left, and Snoke's appearance sure had blown that theory out of the water. And now there were rumors of Palpatine being alive... Poe didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit. But they were here to get information, and he wasn't going to let Rey walk into a damn Sith temple without backup.

A cautious look forward did nothing to ease his trepidation. It was embarrassing, really. He was a pilot and a damn good one, even if he said so himself. The creeping sense of vertigo he felt whenever he thought about following Rey made no sense. "I have a bad feeling about this."

Up ahead, Rey mumbled something under her breath that would have been too low for him to hear if her voice hadn't echoed off the cavern walls.

"I do not have a bad feeling about _everything,_ " Poe objected. He threw a last look down into the darkness and hurried after her.

Rey ignored his reply. Instead, she raised her torch higher and paused a few feet ahead of him. 

Though they were underground, the air was hot and sticky, the temperature rising the farther they went. Poe found his gaze lingering on the wisps of hair that clung to the nape of Rey's neck.

It was a very pretty neck, he had to admit. Sweat beaded on her sun-kissed skin, and the firelight cast a sense of intimacy around her that had his pulse speeding up as he approached her.

 _Hey, how do feel about grabbing a drink after we get out of here?_ He tried out the words in his head, but they never made it across his tongue. _Felucia has the most beautiful sunsets of the galaxy. We're not that far off. How about a quick detour before we head back?_

He sighed. He could just picture her amused expression. And she'd turn him down, of course. Just as she'd done the last two times he'd asked. And even though she'd cited Leia's command to return without delay on both occasions, Poe wasn't an idiot. He could take a hint.

 _So get over it_ , he admonished himself. _She's not interested. Move on. You're dangerously close to mooning and you're way too old for that._

"Oh, damn it." Rey's voice brought him back to the present.

"What is it?"

"There's a gap. We'll have to jump it."

_Sure. Let's jump across the gap and land on a ledge barely wide enough for me to stand on. No problem. No problem at all._

The sarcastic retort lingered on his tongue long after he'd swallowed it. "After you, then," he said with a studied air of casualness.

There was nothing to it. He'd been flying combat missions for close to two decades. He could totally jump across a gap in a narrow ledge that was the only thing that stood between him and a bottomless pit. And with barely any light to guide him, too. Child's play, really. He could do it with his eyes closed.

 _I'll basically have to_ , he thought grumpily as he watched Rey fall into a run and sail across a six-foot gap with somnambulistic certitude. The fire roared and flickered, and for a moment, Poe was sure that the torch would go out. He held his breath until he saw the flames settle down again.

Rey steadied herself with one hand against the wall before quickly turning around. "You want me to throw you the torch?"

Poe considered it but decided that he didn't want to risk fumbling the catch. "Nah, I'm good. Just stay close so I can see where I'm going."

"Will do." Rey stepped forward until she was only a couple of feet away from the gap.

It gave him a narrow space to land, but it was the only way he could see the section where the ledge had crumbled clearly. It looked as if there had been a rockslide, and the thought that he might be trapped on the path if the ground shifted above or below had him sweating even more.

_Well, here I go, I guess._

Ignoring the queasy feeling in his stomach, Poe took a running jump across the gap.

For a moment, he was sure that he'd made it. His feet connected with solid stone, and Rey's face split into a relieved smile that he couldn't help but return. But then, before he fully realized what was happening, the ground disappeared beneath his feet.

Rey's expression turned to one of alarm and her hand shot out, her fingers digging into his shirt.

"Poe!"

"Oh, crap."

Rey's face disappeared from his line of sight, and he was falling. The torch sailed past him, and he felt rather than saw strong hands tightening around his arm like a vice.

The world turned dark.

From below him came the echoing roar of detritus dislodging larger boulders, from above came the sound of a dull thud and a pained grunt.

Searing pain stabbed through his arm and he cried out, only for his voice to be drowned out by the rockslide he'd shaken loose. For a moment, he felt as if his arm had been wrenched out of its socket, but his sudden descent came to a no less sudden stop.

Poe listened to the tumbling rocks beneath him as he tried to catch his breath. The pain had him trembling, and beads of sweat were running down his temples.

"Are you– are you okay?" Rey asked, more coughing than speaking.

As the pain in his arm receded, he felt her hands clutching him.

"Fine," he grunted. He didn't dare look down, not that looking down would have been much use to him. With the torch buried beneath the rocks, everything was pitch black. "I'm fine," he repeated, still panting.

"Can you get a foothold?"

It was difficult no to think about the fact that the only thing that was keeping him from plunging into the chasm was the strength of Rey's arms. He gingerly moved one of his legs and tried to find the wall, but he only managed to dislodge a few more pebbles that tumbled into the depth.

"I think the wall is too sheer. There's nothing that will hold me."

"Okay, so, next question, and it's an important one."

"Oh, good."

"Brace yourself."

"Believe me,9 I am braced. And may I say how reassuring it is that you still have the breath to joke while you're holding on to me."

"Not afraid that I'll drop you then?"

He considered her question for a moment. "No. Actually, I'm not. Just impressed."

"Impressed, huh?"

There was a pleased tone in her voice which made him bite back an instant retraction. Not because it wasn't true, but because he was contrary by nature, and he and Rey had settled into a relationship of mutual ribbing and backhanded compliments that managed to be both comfortable and exciting, but didn't really lend itself to sincerity. However, given the current situation...

_If this isn't a time for sincerity than what is?_

"Well, since you're so impressed, it should make my question easy to answer." The last of her words where interrupted by another shallow cough. It was accompanied by the sound of her shifting on the ground, and his stomach dropped as a shower of pebbles rained down on him.

"Are you okay up there?"

"Yeah. There's just a lot of dust in the air."

He swallowed nervously and reached for the wall, but there was nothing to hold on to. "What's your question?"

"Are you sure you're ready?"

"I am very ready to get out of here."

He swore he could hear her laugh quietly. It was almost comforting. "Do you trust me?"

Poe opened his mouth, closed it again, and braced himself.

"I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"Yes or no?"

"I need to think."

Rey grunted softly and adjusted her grip. "Think fast then."

"You're not going to drop me, are you?"

"Five, four.."

"Now, hold on a minute."

"Three..."

"That is _not_ fair."

"Two..."

"You're totally taking advantage of– "

"One."

"Alright. Yes. I trust you, okay? I trust you."

"I am glad to hear it. Now, don't panic."

She let go.

His brain was still furiously trying to catch up to what was happening to him as his body dropped into the darkness. He couldn't even scream; his shock was so complete that all the air had left his lungs.

But as he saw himself splattered across the floor, his body slowed down, stopped, and finally began to float upwards again in a startling defeat of gravity.

Poe had many things to say about the Force. Most of the time, it was something along the lines of "Leave me alone with that stuff." But for once he wasn't going to complain that there were people like Rey who could bend it to their will.

He laughed out of sheer relief. "Not a bad trick."

"Well, you know me. I like to be useful."

"You're more than just useful, Rey. You– ouch!"

He touched the top of his head where he'd bumped hard against the rock.

"Oh, sorry. Sorry, I didn't see that."

"Can you actually see anything?" His fingers came away wet, and he felt a cool trickle of blood run down his heated skin. He couldn't wait to get out of this tunnel and back onto the Falcon with its air conditioning and clean water.

"Not with my eyes, but I can see you in the Force. It's like a soft light in the darkness." Her next words were colored by embarrassment. "It's hard to explain."

He wasn't sure what to say. He'd never been described like that, and he wondered if she saw everyone the same way that she saw him – as a light in the darkness; a tiny star in the galaxy. There was something almost poetic about it.

Suddenly, her slim, strong hands grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him back onto the ledge. His feet hit the ground hard and he stumbled in the dark and fell against her.

"Uh– hi," he said with an awkward smile that she couldn't see.

Her arms came around his waist to steady him. Her body felt soft and strong against his, and he allowed himself the indulgence of leaning into her for the span of two heartbeats before he pulled back. The pain in his shoulder throbbed dully as he moved.

To his surprise, she didn't let go.

Instead, her hands went up to his face, and he stayed stock still, hardly daring to breathe, as her fingertips found his aching temple.

"You're hurt."

"Just a slight bump. Nothing to worry about."

She huffed. "You're bleeding, Poe."

Her prodding fingers had him flinching away. "A little blood just adds to my rugged good looks," he joked.

 _There you go, flirting again._ "Sorry I'll knock it off."

Her hand stopped at his cheek. "What are you talking about?"

"The flirting. Bad habit. Which is not an excuse, just an explanation. I'll stop."

"I don't think it's a bad habit," she said quietly.

He would have given anything for enough light to see her face. "You don't?"

"No. I like it." Was it his imagination or was she leaning more firmly against him?

"But I thought– I assumed–" _Aaand you're stammering. Great. Very smooth._ He cleared his throat. "You turned me down. Twice."

"We were on a mission."

"Not to be contrary–" (Rey snorted softly.) "–but I asked you after those missions were over, so what's the real reason?"

He could feel her fingertips playing with his collar as she considered her answer. "I don't really think of it that way," she said eventually. "I don't think the missions ever end. It's all tied together. When one task is done, you go on to the next. That's how I survived on Jakku. Take one part of the Star Destroyer, search it, take what can be sold, move on to the next section and the one after that and so on until you went through the entire ship. Slow, but methodical. No mistakes.

"You keep pushing me to leave the base and join the fight, and I want to. More than anything. But the fastest way for me to go out there and be useful is to complete my training with Leia. I don't have time for distractions. And you–" she sighed and rested her forehead against his chest. Her words were muffled as she continued. "–you are proving to be a very annoying distraction lately."

Standing in complete darkness beneath the surface of a volcano with a bleeding head wound was not the moment he would have chosen for this conversation, but it seemed that, not for the first time, life had dealt him a strange hand.

It was true that he had grown increasingly frustrated with Rey's limited participation in the Resistance's ongoing operations, but he had failed to consider her reasons for it. As it was, he felt guilty that he'd added to the conflict with which she already struggled. He'd pushed her to do more, and here she was already pushing herself to the limit, trying to measure up to their expectations on top of the ones she had of herself.

"There's more to war than fighting, Rey. And there's more to our lives than this war. It's okay to take some time to get away and breathe every now and then. We all do it. We have to. You lose sight of why you're fighting if you don't remind yourself what you're fighting for. You can take a break. You are not alone anymore. We'll take care of you as much as you take care of us." He carefully wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his cheek on top of her head. "I'm sorry that I made you feel as if you're not doing enough."

"I'll join you guys soon, I promise. Leia says that I'm doing well. There isn't much left for her to teach me." Her head came up. "Though I wish we'd already covered Force healing. I could fix that thick-skulled head of yours right here, instead of us needing to go back to the Falcon."

"We're not going back. I told you, it's just a bump. It already stopped bleeding."

Her fingers found his temple in the dark with disconcerting surety. "No, it hasn't."

"Well, it will pretty soon. So let's move on. I don't suppose you can float us over to the next tunnel? It would make everything a lot easier."

"The only way I'm floating you is back to the exit. You need bandages and bacta."

"We have a mission to complete."

"You just said it was okay to take time off," she shot back stubbornly. "We can delay for a couple of hours.”

Poe couldn't help the grin that spread over his face. He loved that she was just as stubborn as he was.

"And what are you planning to do with me during those couple of hours?"

"Did you just waggle your eyebrows at me?"

"What? No. I– you couldn't have possibly seen that."

A strangled shout tore out of him as his feet lost contact with the ground again. "Would it have killed you to give me a little warning?" he called out as Rey floated him through the darkness.

"I could have, but this way is more fun."

He was still grumbling under his breath when he stumbled into the mouth of the tunnel. Relief washed over him as he felt the solid stone beneath him. He felt like kneeling and hugging the ground. Or perhaps, holding on to it for reassurance (not that he'd admit it.) 

Moments later, Rey arrived by his side, one of her hands coming to rest on the small of his back.

"I'm beginning to think that deep down, you're not the sweet, compassionate person you have everyone believing you are," he said.

He could hear the grin in her voice. "Are you saying I have a mean streak?"

He straightened and pulled her into his arms. "Oh, you definitely do."

His move made her gasp softly. "Seems to me as if you like that."

"I can't honestly deny it." Poe lowered his face. He aimed for her mouth, but his lips found her nose instead.

Rey laughed. She untangled her limbs from his, but let her hand slide down his arm to thread her fingers through his. "Come on. Let's find some daylight so I can appreciate those rugged good looks."

Poe hurried after her, a grin on his face. For once, he wasn't going to argue.


End file.
